Disposable absorbent articles, such as diapers, are well known in the art. Disposable absorbent articles retain and absorb body exudates, such as urine and fecal material deposited thereon.
Significant advances have been made in the art relative to absorbing and retaining urine deposits. For example, disposable absorbent articles seldom leak and may be relatively thin due to the incorporation of absorbent gelling materials.
However, fewer attempts have been made in the art to handle deposits of fecal material in disposable absorbent articles. Fecal material has the undesirable problems of smearing onto the wearer's skin, causing epidermal irritation and complicating the task of cleaning the wearer when the soiled diaper or other disposable absorbent article is removed.
To overcome these problems, certain attempts have been made in the art to isolate the fecal material from the skin of the wearer. Such attempts include providing cups which attempt to circumscribe the anal opening, the genitalia, or both in an attempt to isolate these, regions of the wearer's body. These attempts can be uncomfortable for the wearer and require precise positioning of the cup.
In still another attempt, resilient barriers extending transversely or longitudinally have been placed below the topsheet of the diaper. But this arrangement suffers from the drawback that fecal material deposited on the topsheet above the barrier, can migrate and still cause the aforementioned problems. This arrangement simply does not provide the abrupt discontinuity necessary to obstruct migration of fecal material deposited on the topsheet of the diaper.
Furthermore, such an arrangement may even be ineffective in preventing excessive transverse migration of the fecal material. A barrier disposed below the topsheet cannot be easily joined to longitudinally extending barrier leg cuffs, which, as are well known in the art, minimize leakage from the diaper. Thus, fecal material which is channeled towards transverse migration by the barrier may be transported to the perimeter of the diaper and breach the perimeter, causing leakage.
Other attempts have been made in the art to provide a void or hole into which the fecal material is deposited and retained (hopefully), so that the location of the fecal material is limited to the position of the void or hole. Examples of such attempts are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,877 issued May 5, 1987, to Williams; U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,536 issued Jan. 9, 1990, to DesMarais et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,312 issued Nov. 6, 1990, to Khan; U.S. Pat. No. 4,990,147 issued Feb. 5, 1991, to Freeland; U.S. Pat. No. 5,062,840 issued Nov. 5, 1991, to Holt et al.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a disposable absorbent article having an extendible absorbent split core to isolate and minimize the migration of fecal material, thereby reducing epidermal contact with the fecal material and minimizing cleaning by the caretaker. It is also an object of this invention to provide an absorbent article having both an elasticized panel topsheet and expandable or elasticized panel back sheet to provide a greater void volume to isolate fecal material from the wearer.